Police in Zimbabwe on Tuesday raided the offices of the country’s sole independent daily newspaper, shut since Friday for operating illegally, and began to confiscate equipment, company officials said.
”Police are seizing our assets right now,” company lawyer Gugulethu Moyo said.
The Daily News, which is fiercely critical of President Robert Mugabe’s government, was forcibly shut down last week, accused of operating illegally because it had not registered with a state-appointed media commission.
Under Zimbabwe’s strict media laws all news organisations, newspapers and journalists have to be registered with a government media commission — something the Daily News has refused to do, saying mandatory registration with the state-appointed commission was unconstitutional.
The paper was due to file an urgent application in the High Court on Tuesday to get its offices reopened, a lawyer said.
”We are still working on the papers and we expect to file the application and serve the papers [on the police] later this
morning,” the paper’s legal adviser, Gugulethu Moyo, said before the morning raid.
The chief executive of the Daily News, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, was also likely to appear in court on Tuesday on charges of illegally operating a newspaper.
Nkomo said he had been asked to report to the central police station in Harare on Tuesday.
”I have been asked to come to the charge office right now,” he said.
”I don’t know if it is a prelude to the court appearance or if it is for further charges or maybe to be locked up”.
Police on Friday raided the Daily News offices and printing presses and ordered everyone out of the building, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that the paper was operating illegally.
The paper has since applied to register with the commission but Information Minister Jonathan Moyo told state television on Monday that the application was incomplete.
The closure of the paper has been condemned both in Zimbabwe and internationally. — Sapa-AFP
Editor-in-chief of Zim paper quits